Security

Royal Navy Kills Two Pirates in First 'Fatal Shoot-Out in Living Memory'

For years, Somali pirates have terrorized the waters of East Africa, with only the occasional spasm of opposition. But now, NATO has begun to patrol the area in force. And the pirates are starting to get smacked back. On Tuesday, the British Royal Navy "repelled a pirate attack on a Danish cargo ship off the […]

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For years, Somali pirates have terrorized the waters of East Africa, with only the occasional spasm of opposition. But now, NATO has begun to patrol the area in force. And the pirates are starting to get smacked back. On Tuesday, the British Royal Navy "repelled a pirate attack on a Danish cargo ship off the coast of Yemen, shooting dead two men," the BBC reports.

"It was the first time the Royal Navy had been engaged in a fatal shoot-out on the high seas in living memory," the Times of London adds.

*By the time the Royal Marines boarded the pirates’ vessel, the enemy had lost the will to fight and surrendered quietly. The Royal Navy described the boarding as “compliant”.
*

Yesterday’s dramatic confrontation, the latest in a series of piracy incidents in the Gulf of Aden in recent months, took place 60 miles south of the
Yemeni coast and involved the Royal Navy Type 22 frigate,* HMS Cumberland.

The Cumberland's crew identified the pirate dhow -- a stolen fishing boat -- as one of the vessels which had been involved in an attack on the Danish-registered MV Powerful.

*Under rules of engagement which allows the Royal Navy to intervene when pirates are positively identified, the commandos were dispatched from the frigate in rigid-raider craft and sped towards the pirates’ dhow. The
Ministry of Defence said the Marines circled the pirates’ boat to try and persuade them to stop.
*

As they approached, however, several of the pirates, a mixed crew of Somalis and Yemenis, swung their assault rifles in their direction and opened fire.
The MoD said the Royal Marines returned fire “in self defence”, and then boarded the dhow.*

A Russian navy's spokesman tells the Guardian that one of his ships, the frigate Neustrashimy, was also involved in the operation. He said the Neustrashimy had been escorting another Danish vessel when it was called to help.

The Russian navy started patrolling the Gulf of Aden after Somali pirates seized a Ukranian ship, packed with heavy weaponry and at least two Russian nationals. All in all, there have been more than a hundred pirate incidents in the region since the beginning of the year.

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